


The Consequences of Underage Drinking

by Prix



Series: It's Always Sunny in Domino City [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series, Yu-Gi-Oh! - All Media Types, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Bonding, Character Development, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-16 23:33:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16504958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: The legal drinking age in Japan is 20 years of age, but no one seems to care. Seto puts in some volunteer babysitting hours.





	The Consequences of Underage Drinking

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series. See above! The previous installment in particular is relevant to this situation, but if you would like to join me for what I hope is an unfolding ensemble story then check out the rest. 
> 
> As the summary states, the age of majority and therefore legal drinking is 20 in Japan. However, from what I was able to gather from some quick Google research, the legal drinking age has _never_ been widely enforced in spite of it being one of the oldest similar regulations in the world. The more you know! 
> 
> Speaking of localization of concepts: if I utilize a colloquial term in dialogue that doesn't seem to make sense for a Japanese character, you can assume that I mean the nearest-possible-match to something that makes sense. Such choices are made consciously and with artistic license. I'm sure you either knew that or didn't care, but my inner pedant couldn't handle not saying so.

_Kaiba Corporation Headquarters, Domino City, likely still in Japan_

 

 

How he winds up in these situations is beyond Seto. Every time he comes into contact with Yugi or one of his friends, there is a part of him that always assumes that it will be the last time. And yet, suddenly, it isn’t. He has gone about two months without hearing from any of them. He had thought that the end of high school had finally marked the end of all of that nonsense – at least until such a time as he could finally prove to himself that any of it had been worth it.

Now he is tasked with making sure the one of them – his least favorite, in fact – doesn’t get himself killed one way or another. He has no patience for it when the same ungrateful streetrat starts making thinly veiled references to suicidal thinking. He feels a cold tingle in his veins that makes his arms feel rigid. He breathes through it. Then, with practiced, conscious precision, he rotates his weight into punching Jounouchi in the face. He catches him by the cheekbone, enough to rattle but not enough to knock him out or in a place that’ll make him bleed. He doesn’t know how much of it he thought about ahead of time. He is standing there, in front of him, and Jounouchi tries to clear his focus, Seto can’t stand it and punches him in his stupid gut that he’s gone and filled with a bunch of alcohol he almost certainly can’t afford.

He notices that there is food in the vomit too and wrinkles his nose, but he doesn’t remark on it.

“Good,” he says harshly. He resists the urge to kick his toe out, trying to get the splatter of bile off it, but it won’t be that easily corrected.

“... Good?” Jounouchi asks, clearly not very fast on the uptake. Even slower than he usually is.

“Now that you’ve got some of that poison out of your body, you might be sober sometime tonight,” Seto grumbles with a sigh. It feels like every word is losing part of a deal, but he shakes it off. He seizes Jounouchi by the shirt again and tugs him away from the shining, glass siding of the Kaiba Corporation Headquarters. He pulls him along to the next corner and takes him down toward one of the entrances of the building. He only lets him go to fish down into his pocket to scan his ID to get through the main doors this late at night. Most of the employees have gone home for the night, and the whole place smells faintly of bleach, fake lemons, and ozone. A harsh burst of air blows down over both of them as they cross the second threshold, keeping the bugs out and perhaps sanitizing Jounouchi a little.

“Where are we?” Jounouchi asks. Again, Seto thinks it should have been obvious if not for Jounouchi’s choice to make himself dumber. He sets his jaw and grinds his molars a little before answering, all the while leading the way – only a couple of steps ahead – across the shining, dark gray floor to the elevators. He leads him to the one straight ahead, ignoring those on either side. Again, he scans an identification that summoned the elevator to open.

“Just don’t throw up inside if you can stop yourself,” Seto replies as he uses his arm to still the elevator door for a bit longer than its timer would allow. Jounouchi pauses long enough to take in the frame of the open door then trudges inside, brushing past Seto while rubbing beneath his eye and up along his cheekbone as if he is assessing the damage from a few moments before. When he has cleared his way into the elevator, Seto pulls his arm back and presses the button that will take them directly into the antechamber of his office near the very top of the building.

He hears a disconcerting groan and glances over at his _charge_ for the night. He thinks about warning him again, but as the elevator jolts into action, Jounouchi finds a hand hold in a brushed metal railing that lines the sides of the elevator about waist height. He sees his throat bob and realizes that maybe Jounouchi has listened to one thing he’s said. His eyes are closed like he is concentrating, or maybe he is just avoiding the brighter light in the active elevator.

The elevator moves at a smooth, fast speed once it starts, whisking them up dozens of floors in just a moment. Then, it settles back into place and opens to an empty reception room.

“This is your office?” Jounouchi asks. It seems like a rhetorical question, so Seto doesn’t even consider answering. “Why?” Jounouchi presses.

Seto sighs as he unlocks the door to his office with both another ID scan and a biometric pad which he presses his thumb to.

“Seems like it’d get annoying when you go around places in your building. Or go out to lunch,” Jounouchi rambles at a lower-than-usual volume.

“People come to me,” Seto replies in the event that some kind of response might appease him into shutting up.

“Oh, right. You up here in your ivory tower, away from the rest of us mortals,” Jounouchi grumbles. When Seto glances back at him, a little surprised by the deft reference, he notices that he seems to be soothing his bruised cheek with the palm of his hand. Seto just blinks and holds the door open with his outstretched arm. “Come in,” he says.

Jounouchi rolls his shoulders a little and obeys him. He comes in, looks left and right, then plods his way over to the sofa along the wall. He sits down heavily. His knees are spread apart, and for a moment he leans all the way back, chin pointed at the ceiling. Seto notices his throat bob again.

“If you got a trashcan around might hand it over,” Jounouchi suggests.

It catches Seto off-guard. It’s so casual, but it’s a demand to his ears, and it isn’t something he hears very often. At least not from someone like Jounouchi or someone anywhere near his own age. To his chagrin, however, Jounouchi is right, so he picks up an aluminum waste basket from beside his desk which is freshly emptied and relined and sets it down in front of him.

“Good job managing to keep the rest of it down,” Seto remarks as he takes a step back. “You must be proud of yourself.”

“Not really,” Jounouchi admits, and Seto almost immediately regrets prompting even more unfiltered honesty. He backs off and walks over to his desk, letting the ambient light of the city through the windows filter into his dark office. He uses it to glance over the papers on his desk. He wakes his computer screen and looks at it, too. He is looking for anything that can hold his attention for a little while. He may have intended to be gone for the day after his meeting at the izakaya where he’d picked up the disaster sitting on the couch, but there is always something else to do when you’re the CEO.

For a moment, he almost thinks he’ll have some success at ignoring Jounouchi. He notices a new email in his inbox – probably from someone in a different timezone – and clicks it. He leans against one elbow slightly. The pad of his thumb brushes the corner of his mouth absently, and for a second he is lost in reading it, the sound of someone else breathing nearby the only distraction. That is a distraction he can handle and is used to. Then, Jounouchi has to open his mouth again.

“Are you workin’?” he asks. Seto glances over and notices he’s picked his head up.

“What would you—” he starts to ask irritably, but he stops himself. He straightens his posture and turns in his chair toward the couch. He looks at Jounouchi and makes himself _not_ say the cruelest thing he possibly could. He’d heard what Jounouchi had been saying down on the street. “Yeah,” he corrects himself.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Jounouchi remarks.

“Not quite,” Seto corrects him with a glance at the time display on the computer screen.

“Yeah, whatever. You like to argue definitions if it just keeps you bein’ right,” Jounouchi says.

“Even if I didn’t think it would be better if you stayed quiet,” Seto said pointedly, “don’t you think talking might make you feel worse?”

“You made me waste perfectly good food. Food Honda paid for,” Jounouchi remarks.

That suggestion makes Seto frown. It’s such a strange thing for someone to consider after throwing up, but he does not have to question it. Immediately, he knows what it is. They have both been there – wanting enough for every bite to matter. And judging by what Jounouchi was saying outside…

“You lost your job?” Seto clarifies, clearing his throat softly.

“Yeah,” Jounouchi replies, dragging out the sound of the word as if he doesn’t really want to elaborate. His shoulders slump and he exhales heavily.

“What _was_ your job?” Seto asks. If there’s a thread of disdain in it, he isn’t sure he even remembers how to correct it.

“Just somebody to carry stuff for people. Nothing important. Was late one day and they didn’t need me anymore after that,” Jounouchi drones out. He is looking down at his hands and with a nervous tugging motion between a couple of his fingers, he cracks several of them quite loudly.

“... Can you get another job carrying things for people?” Seto asks. He doesn’t know why he asks the question, but it seems like the natural one to ask.

“Sure. Probably. Unless someone informed every person who goes around hiring unskilled guys to lug things around on and off of the backs of trucks that I have a less-than-perfect immune system,” Jounouchi says and, for some reason, he glances over and meets Seto’s eyes and straightens up his posture. He wonders if there is something about that he’d intended to hide, but it isn’t worth making an issue of it. Jounouchi clears his throat. “So why’d you bring me to your office?”

“I didn’t think you were likely to give me accurate directions and I wasn’t willing to risk it,” Seto replies. He resigns himself to the idea that he won’t end this conversation prematurely and leans back in his chair a little, causing it to give with the form of his body. “You needed to dry out somewhere, and I wasn’t about to take you home with me.”

Jounouchi gives him a look – surprise and a little bit of a flare of his nose. He sniffs as a response, in part.

“Hey, no need to get personal,” he says as if he is trying to respond in kind to what he must think is a joke.

It’s a fair assessment. Seto isn’t sure how exactly it’s a joke, but it is one.

“I meant... “ Seto says. He pauses for a moment. He puts both his elbows on his desk as he draws his legs beneath it. His fingertips touch each other in a light drumming motion before he relaxes and rests his forearms on the surface in front of him. “Mokuba,” he says, offering a one-word explanation for what could have been much longer.

Jounouchi is still delayed in responding. He looks down at the floor at the aluminum trashcan.

“... Y’didn’t want your little brother to see me like this,” he says as it finally registers, apparently.

“I didn’t want him to see you at all,” Seto replies.

“Hey! That isn’t fair,” Jounouchi says, as if that factors into it somehow. He’s getting himself worked up, and for a moment there is a little bit of light returned to his eyes as he rounds slightly on Seto and slides more to the edge of his seat on the couch. “I’ve never done anything but _help_ your br—” He cuts himself off. Seto realizes why when Jounouchi’s hand comes back up to cover the side of his face he’d hit. He rubs at it then over his lips. He looks down and his light hair hangs over his eyes. “You got a glass or a bottle of water or something?” he asks.

Seto rolls his eyes, but he rolls himself back and rises to his feet. Two steps take him to a sleek, built-in minifridge. He opens it up and withdraws a water bottle made of recycled and biodegradable materials with a Kaiba Corporation logo on it. It is almost freezing to the touch. He brings it over to Jounouchi, twists the cap enough to fully break the seal, and holds it out to him.

Jounouchi glances up, all the way to Seto’s face and then to the water bottle.

“Thank you,” he says, more slow and formal than usual. He takes the bottle and secures it in his own grip. He finishes uncapping it and turns it up, taking several deep swallows before he goes to set it aside on a side table. He looks up at Seto again, a bit sheepishly.

“What?” Seto asks, mystified.

“You want me to use a coaster or something?” Jounouchi asks.

“It’s fine,” Seto saids gruffly. He pushes his hands down into his coat pockets.

“I mean it,” Jounouchi says. “Thanks,” he continues after poking the water bottle – perhaps catching condensation on his fingertip. “I get it. I wouldn’t want you drunk around my little sister either,” he says with a half-formed smirk as he’s looking over at the water bottle.

Seto watches the scene for a moment, not having the faintest idea what to do and not liking it one bit. This particular job has never been his responsibility before. His gaze scans the length of the couch and he gives an abrupt order.

“Lie down,” he says.

Jounouchi looks up at him, silently baffled.

He gestures to the couch’s unused length.

“Huh?” Jounouchi intones, too late and still dumb.

“I said: lie down,” Seto repeats.

“I heard ya, but… why?”

“You need to dry out. And if I’m not going to sleep, I at least need some peace and quiet,” Seto insists. He is a little satisfied when he sees the resigned submission to his words come across Jounouchi’s body language. Without permission or instruction, Jounouchi toes off his shoes and starts to lie on his back. “... On your side,” Seto suggests, firmly but with a slight hesitation. “That way you won’t choke on your own vomit or drool,” he adds coolly. Then he turns his back and returns to his own desk. He glances over a few times as Jounouchi arranges his limbs and seems to find a way to tug his jacket around himself more tightly. He doesn’t have a blanket to offer him. It looks like Jounouchi has slept that way before.

 

\- - -

 

Jounouchi snores softly from time to time when his chin dips too low. Then he moves again and his breathing levels out into a steadier rhythm. The sound isn’t enough to really disturb Seto; he’s had a brother most of his life. After a few hours, though, fatigue starts to creep into the corners of his eyes and to make looking at his computer screen for much longer seem untenable. He looks at his desk and at nothing in particular. He puts his computer to sleep and notes how much darker it makes his office, and for a moment, there is relief.

He closes his eyes, and after several seconds he reaches down and pulls his Duel Monsters deck out of his pocket. He looks down at it and turns it in is hand. Slowly, without real intent, he starts to look at each of the cards. Some of them glint while others simply show the faintest reflection of the ambient light from behind him. His gaze settles on his favorite card, and then he glances over at Jounouchi. The things his own ego have led him to cross his mind.

He neatly replaces the deck back into his pocket and exhales. Opposite his deck, he fishes his hand over and tugs out his phone. He checks the time on the lockscreen and glances over at Jounouchi who is sleeping soundly.

He weighs his options between courtesy and efficiency. He knows which one he would ordinarily choose, but he is already in deep enough that he isn’t sure how much calling on someone to help is actually going to net him in the long term. He swipes his thumb to unlock his phone and taps the Contacts icon. He scrolls through manually rather than typing the characters into the search bar. Maybe he’s stalling, thinking it over without thinking too hard.

Finally, he reaches the name he’d been searching for: _Yugi Mutou_

He glances at the time once more, rises from his seat, and clears his throat. He turns to face the window as he presses the Call button. The phone rings once.

Then he hears Jounouchi groan and murmur something, and he glances back. He notices him sitting up and reaching for the crown of his head.

“Hey…” Jounouchi greets, almost casually. He is squinting at him through sleep and then abruptly asks, apprehensively, “What’re you doing?”

“Calling Yu—” Seto explains, but before he can finish the name Jounouchi pushes himself harder and faster into an upright position, wincing through trying to get his bearings.

“Please don’t,” he says, and there is enough anxiety and fear in his voice that on a worse day in a different time Seto might have relished in it. Tonight, though, he draws the phone away from his ear and presses End Call. He looks at Jounouchi expectantly, waiting for an explanation.

When one doesn’t come immediately, he pockets his phone and articulates the question.

“Then what do you want me to do?” he asks.

“What were you calling Yugi for? And what time is it anyway?” Jounouchi asks, pulling his phone from his pocket. It’s older than Seto’s and sports a crack in one corner of the screen. He winces even harder at the screen than at being awake in general.

“One of your friends needs to come take you home…” Seto explains.

“... Oh,” Jounouchi says. Seto cannot tell if the dull response is resignation to the fact that he is right or simply the only way Jounouchi can bear to communicate at the moment. He watches him put his phone back into his pocket. Jounouchi blinks hard a few times, rubs his eyes, and shakes his head. He seems to regret that and reaches up for the back of his neck. “Yugi can’t drive or anything, so it’s not like there’s a point in waking him up.”

“And there’s—”

“Look, I know I’ve kept you up. I’m sorry. Just… don’t call Yugi,” Jounouchi requests, insists. He fumbles around a bit clumsily and finds his shoes. “I’ll get there on my own,” he says.

“Do you even know where your apartment _is_ from here?” Seto asks.

Jounouchi frowns at nothing without looking over toward him or the city lights coming in through the windows.

“I’ll figure it out,” he insists.

When Jounouchi takes a few moments to pull his shoes on, Seto comes from around his desk and approaches him.

“Why don’t you want Yugi to know where you are?” he asks. “I thought you did _everything_ together,” he says, a little mockingly but not to the point of barring response.

“It’s not where I am,” Jounouchi says, giving his response as much dignity as he seems to be able to muster. “It’s what I did…” he adds more quietly as he cinches his shoelaces.

“What you did,” Seto repeats. “Get drunk?” he prompts.

Jounouchi silently nods.

“I take it that was your first time?”

“Yeah,” Jounouchi says. “And I’m not proud of it, and…”

“You don’t plan to keep doing it,” Seto says. He comes around and sits down in a leather upholstered chair across from the couch which rests at an angle to make the couch as visible as possible from where he sits at his desk. He sits straight and back, watching as Jounouchi works out his equilibrium in a seated position and responds to an obvious headache with rubbing fingertips at his temples.

“Yeah,” Jounouchi agrees absentmindedly.

“Because if I find out you did, I’m going to kick your ass,” Seto says, plainly and with a tone that is so formal it belies its own content.

Jounouchi lifts his gaze and holds Seto’s with a squint.

“What d’you care?” he asks.

“You’ve inconvenienced me,” Seto explains simply, “and if you don’t learn from it then you’ve wasted my time for _nothing_.”

“So you’re a straight-edge, huh?”

“I never said anything about what I am. That isn’t what you should be worried about,” Seto deflects in spite of the truth. While he had to learn to socially drink even earlier than this, he finds ways to minimize it, to avoid it. Being the most sober person at the bar made it possible for him to be as keen a negotiator as he has been throughout his latter teens. However, avoiding the effects of alcohol entirely hadn’t proved to be a charming enough strategy. Whatever he is or isn’t, he mostly associates the whole thing with a well-deserved, burning taste of bile coming back up his throat without fanfare and a rolling stomach that complains. And it seems like Jounouchi has gunned his first experience as well as he is able. He impresses his next point straight into Jounouchi’s eyes with his, like ice picks. “It’s what _you_ are.”

Jounouchi frowns. He sees his chin lower, and it reminds him of a dog cowering back from a near-miss, fearful and suspicious.

“You don’t know nothing about me,” Jounouchi insists.

“I know you’re an idiot who’s trying to outrun becoming his father but decides that the way to accomplish that is to do the exact same things his father did,” Seto replies calmly. He glances away as if to impress how confident he is that his statement is a moot point.

He hears Jounouchi part his lips to speak, but then, adrenaline apparently gets the better of him and he is on his feet. Seto just lifts his eyes to watch him take a few unnecessarily heavy steps against the floor. Most of the danger has probably passed in terms of him ruining the flooring, and at this point, he just wants to win.

“Hey, you know what?” Jounouchi says when he rounds on Seto with nowhere further to go. He comes back a little closer to finish: “Fuck you.”

Seto only smirks. Finally he shrugs one shoulder and looks down at his lap. He dusts off one of his knees.

“You can correct me if I’m wrong,” he says quietly. He lets that hang in the air for a second. “I’ll get someone to drive you home,” he says, pulling out his phone again. He doesn’t wait for an argument this time, and a second glance at Jounouchi shows him the splotched red that has made itself visible up his neck. He knows that he’s made him angry, but it was something that needed to be said. He doesn’t mind making Jounouchi angry.

He speaks to one of the employees who works the night shift in the building. He assures him that everything is alright, that he only needs a favor. He explains that he needs to have a guest driven home. He accepts the respectful response and answers a few questions.

“You remember your address, don’t you, Jounouchi?” he asks with a little smug satisfaction.

“Yeah,” Jounouchi says lowly, because in a way answering at all is a bit of the wound in his pride bleeding openly. Seto knows it, but that isn’t the part that he is paying attention to primarily. He stands up when he hangs up and puts away his phone.

“I wouldn’t come near me if I were you,” Jounouchi warns him, shifting his weight on his feet.

“Or you’ll throw a punch, miss, and get a nice rug-burn on top of the bruises to your dignity?” Seto asks, almost pleasantly. “Go home, Jounouchi,” he says, and he is guiding him out into the antechamber. As they leave his office, he even thinks to grab the unfinished water bottle for him. When the elevator opens, he makes the decision to step inside with him, giving himself a few more seconds to explain and to make sure Jounouchi does as he’s told. “I’ve called a car for you. All you have to do is tell the driver your address. Either he or his GPS system will take care of it. Go finish sleeping it off,” Seto rattles off. He hands the water bottle to Jounouchi who numbly accepts it. His other hand is tucked dejectedly into his pants pocket.

When the elevator door opens and Seto does not step through onto the main floor with him, Jounouchi looks back over his shoulder and pauses for a moment. The lip of the water bottle dangles between two of his fingers. He glances at the car parked out on the curb beyond the main doors. He looks back to Seto. Seto gives him what amounts to an encouraging nod.

“Thanks,” Jounouchi says, a little louder – enough for his voice to echo across the lobby for Seto and the security desk night attendant’s ears only. “You can still go fuck yourself.”

Seto only hears the end of it as the elevator doors close. He catches his own reflection in the burnished surface of the elevator wall as he presses the button to go back up to the office to collect himself again and to prepare to go back home for a few hours. His smirk is something more like a smug smile when he makes it back to the top floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a kudos if you liked it. If you liked it a lot, please leave a comment. You cannot say too much, but if you don't know what to say, you can just tell me what brought you here, your favorite color, or say hi.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In Which Jounouchi Gets Hired At the Host Club](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134613) by [Prix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix), [ToxicTsukino](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToxicTsukino/pseuds/ToxicTsukino)




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